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tv   Charlie Rose  PBS  October 4, 2012 11:00pm-12:00am PDT

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>> rose: welcome to the program. tonight, politics, we begin with chris matthews, host of msnbc's hardball and the chris matthew show. that romney was not predictable. he came in so strong and so in charge that he basically took over the room and i felt he was sufficient in that stage, meaning the president didn't need to be there for romney to put on that show and jim lehrer didn't need to be there, it was a romney control of that space and that physical control of that space which was so dominant. i don't think we have seen anything like it before. and in probably a presidential debate. >> rose: we continue request mark halperin of time magazine and benjamin brafman, a leading trial attorney. the mitt romney was on display last night is the one that his
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friends and family and a few journalists who have had access to him over the years have seen before. that guy can win this race. the question is, can jesus stain it beyond one night. >> in any number of areas what governor romney has done as he said laid, said last night he laid out the broad principles but now you have gotten specific about the good parts, the carrot youill and very vague about the stick. >> obama is brilliant in a speech, a peach is different than when you are in an argument and when you are in an argument if you don't bring passion to your argument the other side is generally going to win and what you say almost matters as much as how you say it, and the scary thing about politics is, substance aside, you know, a lot of the journalist whose know the substance on these issues are debating with themselves who was more accurate and who was not. when you listen to the person in the street, the voter, the juror who i speak to, they say i understood romney, i didn't understandbama i liked romney's style, i didn't
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like the president laying down. >> rose: we conclude this evening with barbara, a computer scientist and author, her book on voting heens is called broken ballots, will your vote count. >> we want americans to know a great democracy deserves a great voting system and right now we have a third grade voting system which is just not worthy of our democracy, we are also very concerned that if there is a very close election or multiple close races in the upcoming election and it seems likely there will be, that if people don't trust the outcome, that is really bad for our democracy. >> rose: the president's debate and the political race when we continue. funding for charlie rose was provided by the following.
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captioning sponsored by rose communications from our studios in new york city, this is charlie rose.
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city, this is charlie rose. >> rose: we begin this evening with polics, governor romney was the clear winner last night in the first of the three presidential debates, his performance revived a campaign dogged by weakening poll numbers a candidate emerged that republicans hoped for, friends often describe but the electorate had yet to encounter. >> that was survey done of small businesses across the country, said what has been the effect of obama care on your hiring plans and three quarters of them said it makes us less likely to hire people. i just don't know how the president could come into office, facing 23 million people out of work, rising unemployment and economic crisis at the kitchen table and spend his energy and passion for two years fihting for obama care instead of fighting for jobs for the american people. >> i have my own plans, not the same as simpson-bowles but in my view the president should have grabbed it if he wanted to make adjustments take it, go to congress and fight it. >> that's what we have done, make adjustments and putting it
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before congress right now, $4 trillion plan. >> you have been president four years, you have been president four years, you said you would cut the deficit in half, we still have trillion dollars deficits, a we will be have a trillion-dollar deficit each of the four years if you are reelected we will get to a $20 trillion debt. >> rose: it will be seen if romney can keep up the momentum. we begin this evening with analysis of chris matthews of msnbc, welcome. >> thank you, charlie. >> rose: as you watched the debate last night, what was your reaction to what you were seeing, b, why do you think it was that way, and, c, where are we going from here? >> well, i think governor romney knew it would be a wide open format and he came in to take charge. he was a commanding presence and i feel for the president because i don't think anyone has ever had to go up against a person who just sort of took the stage as if it didn't need anyone on the stage, including the monitor and once that began, i don't know whether he could change that environment what i was
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frustrated is failure to use the synapse to pop out and sitting here talking you and ji jim lehr about the pbs funding which is okay and cute and fun to talk about, how about the auto industry, i rescued it and you would let it go bankrupt. >> i am if for equal pay of women, he didn't bring up things and let romney get by with some really distracting and really unclear, in fact, untrue statements about healthcare where he said i am for coverage for preexisting conditions, his people later on said he wasn't and he said, in fact, before that he never was really for covering preexisting conditions unless, you know, it is paid for, ahead of time during, you know, continuing coverage, and a couple of times in the last week he said things like well if you get sick we won't let you die in your apartment and get you to er and yet came on last night talking about a national health plan he had which he really doesn't have. i thought he got away with a lot of things showing sympathy for social security recipients when in the tape recently exposed it was clear he had no sympathy for
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people he sees as parasites so i just thought the president, he didn't use his synapse and bring out things that weren't brought up by someone else and didn't really clarify what the difference was between what romney was saying last night and what he said in the very recent past. >> rose: so how do you explain the fact that the president did not do that, that the president seemed off his game, that the president seemed to be knocked back at the very beginning? >> well, i was just bumping into frank, one of the chairmen of the commission and talked about how this is maybe a symptom of presidents, the w was like this, that reagan was lik this in the first debate, that presidents maybe they have heard hail to the chief too many times in the last three years and they think everyone is going to laugh at your jokes, and hang on to their words and be deferential, in fact i thought mitt romney to his credit was respectful, he was even, in fact in the beginning about the president's 20th anniversary and he was nice and more than civil, i thought he was almost cordial in the beginning but tough and one thing he was not was deferential and i think the president was
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put off by that, he thought somehow romney who is trying the take his job away from him was going to be deferential to him as president and he wasn't and the real estate wasn't ready for that i think that was the big change last night. >> it is almost like when he faced governor romney last night he said this is not the guy i expected, he is better. >> well, he was great you have to wonder whether he saved that self of him, the intord room ceo presence, the man who can walk into a room with a portfolio for the business of the day knowing he will be the one to set the agenda, and in all fairness that was the format, i mean jim lehrer was told basically throw out the pot and let them fight for it, don't be the one there trying to dictate terms and rules of engagement, and so how did the president not know it was going to be wide open like that and a strong rival could dominate the stakes so. >> rose: do we know anything about the president's preparation whether john kerry was not the right guy to play mitt romney, anything like that? >> no, because, you know, i don't know how you can say that, because in a way, mitt romney and john kerry are very formal
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people, they are obviously well educated people with a kind of refinement about them, they aren't sloppy in any way, obnoxious in any way, they use firm language but both basically strong people, in the accomplishment, it was probably a very good pick but the romney that came in last night i would say you were right a couple of minutes ago, that romney was not predictable, he came in so strong and so in charge that he basically took over the room and i felt he was sufficient on that stage meaning the president didn't need to be on there for romney to put on the show or jim lehrer, it was romney control of that space and physical control of that space which was so dominant, i don't think we have seen anything like it before. >> rose:. >> in probably a presidential debate. >> rose: i also heard this was not a new romney in the context of have i seen him before. >> yes, mike barnicle saw him in the race for governor when he did win that against shannon o'brien and he has put on that performance but i moderated one of the debates the last time time around at the reagan
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library, he was good but wasn't this, he was good in the opponents that were rather week, like newt and rick santorum, many in the political center but he faced the president of the united states today and walked in the room like he was a bigger, better man and the president, he had that self-confidence which this president is going to have to face down a couple mo times and he is going to have to do it with at least a quality of presence and self-confidence. i thought last night it was about self-confidence. the president didn't seem to be aware, and at least cosmetically of the fact the camera was always on him and wasn't like the nixon kennedy debates and not reaction shots but always a split screen so when he had his head down, you everything at times, like do i have to put up with another ten minutes of this and then he looked back at romney on the same screen and relishing every second of it, romney would have liked a couple more minutes of this and clearly the president was not looking at his watch but when will this ordeal be over and pass, and i think the audience could tell. >> and romney was saying let me
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talk, without being incivil about it. >> he was fine, i can only say romney, mr. romney, totally amoral, apolitical sense i thought his performance last night was masterful if not brilliant. >> rose: masterful and brilliant. >> yes. >> where do we go from here? what should we watch for? >> last time around john kerry we talked about, as a coach and sparring partner he did good against scroo w in 2004 election and the second debate of that kerry was vice president's debate in which after the president losing the debate if you will, then dick cheney who is very, blue edwards out of the room like well until this time i don't think we have met before, very established way to put that, you know people like this. you know how you do it, you just say i don't think we met before, like you are a nobody. and he was very good at that, very good and putting them away and i think that turned it back so the debates wouldn't be lethal to the incumbent president, this time, i think
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joe biden, he has flaws, his establish isn't precise some time but up against a guy child kind of a cold customer, i think he can beat him in terms of likablability if he stays joe biden out there and remains cool and not cold, putting an arm and grabbing you and saying how are you, and how is your mother, haven't seen here in a while, a very personal appeal, i wish he was doing a, biden was doing a tom hall setting, he would shine. >> i think president needs to b a bill oprah and clinton, watch the game films from bill clinton the way he talked to the young fearch woman in 1982, he embraced inner, where george senior, yes, where george seen wrote was saying i don't think you know what the word debt means or deficit, it was like he was questioning her competence with the language instead of saying let me help you. and bill clinton says let me help you, i have people in a small state where somebody is in trouble we know it and know it
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personally and i will know you personally if i am president, it was chillingly good because it wa bill clinton at the best and i hope the president exploits his real human ability, on the stage when they have that kind of a town meeting format where you can meet real people, romney was excellent by the way in bringing up examples of people he has met but of course they were references to people, you don't have to see them interact with him, we don't know if he met these people, he probably did, it is his words he caught on to their needs. >> rose: you mentioned romney early on made the point, used exact word i think of very similar, i want to help you, we are going to create jobs and i pam going to help you create lines. >> what a great line and ikept thinking, i didn't think at the time, we are all thinking afterwards, but if the president said, you know, that is what i felt about the auto workers and all the people that depending on auto industry jobs and did something i haven't done before, i took a risk with the rescue plan and i was willing to do some intervention there, we normally don't do in our capitalist society but i thought
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it was importance because general motors are very important the our society, not just economically but socially, there have to be in blue collar jobs for our society and we needed to feel the grit tens of those kind of jobs, they are who we are, and he could have stood up and given a real wonderf statement to the people of wisconsin, ohio and michigan, and it would have grabbed people, a real blue collar statement, the president didn't seem to know he was allowed to be pa passionate and talk about why he wants to have equal pay for women and why it is important for women who grow up and join the work force to know that their hours are as valuable as the guy's hour and their work is as valuable, he could have given passionate speeches last night and romney would have been out of the picture for a while but he the let romney almost choreograph the evening and i think it was the strength of romney and weakness of the president to let that happen. >> rose: is this a fair observation, i came to the studio live at 11:00 o'clock having seen the debate, have you watched msnbc and i said no, i haven't and they said, chris and others seem visibly angry at what they are seeing.
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is that a fair characterization? >> yeah, i think. so i was told afterwards i was too angry, because i guess you get frustrated because i guess it is like, you know, it is always like watching something where you feel if i was there i could make this different, this doesn't seem to be fair the way it is going and it is a sense you just think it isn't working the way it normally should, what you knowbout the facts, every night like you do, dealing with issues like medicare and social security and with great detail and knowing what the guy on each side has been saying the last couple of days and not hearing it clarified for an audience of 70, $80 million, the big audience should get the news and i don't think they were getting all the news last night. they were getting a romney point of view which was very effective on his part. >> rose: do you think that romney is able to after a performance like this to build on it so that he really does as they say he had to do, get a second look? >> this is going to take some help for the president to stop that from happening. i don't believe the cake is baked as they say. i thought the top guy in philadelphia today and he
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thought the people are already decided and saying the economy is getting better because they already felt they made the decision so they had to say yes things are getting better and i have to tell you i don't think that is true. i think that there is enough in the middle to change their minds now. and i do belief that people are looking for a new path. i used the example of a wagon train going over a tough mountain in the back of the old days of the west and we are trudging up the side of the mountain economically and not really making much progress, with her the mud and winter is coming and the guy come along and i know a path, i know a pass wwe can go through, i have been through there and know this territory and i live out, there follow me, and the only thing missing now to that for us to follow that guy romney for him to lay out a map, he doesn't done that yet. if he says this is how we will do it, is cut these deductions and name them for you and we will do this and going to get that tax cut and encourage small business and we are going to have a real reagan round of reagan activity, the public may say yes, i don't think he is there yet and done that and hasn't sold the deal yet. >> rose: but he scored points last night by constantly
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referring to the middle class and small business. that was brilliant. >> because he took his business background, which has been a mixed blessing at best and turned it into economics, he kept saying small business, small business, small business, you have to avoid the tax increase that affects small business, et cetera, et cetera and he kept saying businesses. >> that's where the jobs are so he translated business into a good thing and a w to get us out of this economic dull drums, i thought that was doll drums, .. i thought tt was masterful too. >> i think obama has tried to rejoin the world, he tried to keep us from being the cowboy in the world and recognize when you go into a war, whatever act of war you commit, whether going into afghanistan on the ground or going in to iraq on the ground or attacking iran by air which is being talked about, of course, because of their nuclear threat, that there are consequences to this, big consequences, which are unpredictable, in fact they could be dynamic and get worse and worse, you could be triggering something, you really don't want to get involved in
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for the next 20 or 30 years. i think he is better at that and i think that kind of sophistication about foreign policy, that sort of experience in the world and also a sensibility that the other parts of the world different than ours are not bad. romney takes this american exceptionism too far in saying we are the good guys, our country right or wrong, these foreigners, europe is sort of bad, it is sort of, you know, it is sort of rotten, at least. and the rest of the world is dangerous and the arabs and all, there is a sense of the other is evil, it is not evil dangerous and i think the president is a much more positive view about the world, and perhaps less truculent and less mill tar risk so i think that is a big decision .. do we want to continue to join the world or do we want t stand-alone and use american exceptionism as our sort of justification for more military action? i think it is a real difference. it is within the 40-yard line on both sides but there is a difference, center right, center left and i think it is a good judgment for the american people to think which direction should we be heading. >> #02: thank you, chris, great to have you. >> charlie, it is always great,
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thank you. >> rose: we will be back, stay with us. >> rose: we continue our analysis of last night's debate from washington, david david leonhardt of "e neyork tis" a mark halpen of time magazine and benjamin brafman, a leading trial attorney. we go first to mark halperin, you were in denver, what happened? >> one candidate showed up and gave the performance of his career and the other candidate gave one of his worst performances but not anything as surprising, i think the big surprise is how well governor romney did, the president made a lot of mistakes, it is surprising when he knew the debate would be on the schedule for a while, but the bad tendencies he showed in that debate and the tactical decisions that were made i think are understaablebuthey came at a horrible time for him because as he was performing so poorly, governor rom i was performing well on a range of variables, including i think showing people what he is really like. the mitt romney who was on display last night is the one that his friends and family and
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a few journalists who hav who hd access to him over the years have seen before, that guy can win this race, the question, is can jesus stain it beyond one night. >> rose: did you know that guy? >> i have seen that guy a few times. but not when he has been on the presidential stage. i saw it when he was between presidential campaigns, i know many people who saw it when he was governor of massachuset and he was at bain but it is a different person, the style of speaking, the calm, the tone of his voice, the cadence, it is a difference -- >> rose: likability even? >> yeah, if you knew nothing about a martian plopped down in front of the vv for 90 minutes which is known as a likable, confident likeable politician, last night it was governor romney. >> he had to do it to keep this thing going going, can jesus stain it? we don't know. >> a lot of lines in the debate he does all the time. they don't work on the stump in the isolatn but they worked on this format. >> the country has a country to run but everybody knows he is famous for practicing in
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private. >> well, except you go back to 2008, and look at how his debate went. he didn't really like it. he really doesn't like it particular my he doesn't like the artifice of politics and the showmanship and debate prep is, you know, that is what that is about for the most part. i think the real estate practiced less i think if you put a stopwatch on it. they have said some of his sessions were disrupted in dealing with north africa and the middle east and some other cry sees and my guess is the president was not necessarily looking for excuses not to rack but when they told him no time for debate prep i bet he wasn't crushed .. governor romney cleared clearly worked on it, he was critical he was giving up too many days on the campaign trail to work on it but the team that did the debate prep for him had a plan and he executed almost beyond anyone's expectation for what he could do. >> rose: and the obama team knows it? >> they do, some of what happened was i think a misconceived notion of a
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strategy to y, don't create big moments, don't create fights, if you don't -- if you act subdued and presidential, governor romney can't create any moments and that -- in this instance you succeeded you look at the television coverage of the debate which is as important, maybe more important than the actual viewing of the debate, people chose all different clips from the debate, there is no moment or moments that were signature to say, this is why romney won, the it was the totality of the 90 minutes, and that was one of their goals. i think the flaw was not necessarily in the plan, it was the president's execution. his energyleve s tone, his failure to pursue arguments that are winning for him. >> rose: if someone had asked me, read the president's mind in the first ten minutes, here is what i would have said. this is not who they told me i would be facing. >> there, you know, there has been much speculation about the choice of senator kerry to play governor romney in debate prep versus the choice of rob portman, the senator from ohio to play the president, i think if you look at senator kerry, i
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think his, my guess is that in prep he was acting like the mitt romney that they were expecting and never aieved that mode because -- >> rose: that is a good point. >> there is no reason to think you would face somebody like that, i think it was reinforced not just watching romney over months and months and in the debate representations i beat kerry was showing the side of rom think that would be easy pickings for the president. >> rose: looking at the content of the debate and the fact that president obama would make a point and then governor romney would come back and say, no, no, no that that's not what i favor. where are we on this content debate about the 5 trillion and what we ought to uderstands the fact check and reality of the numbers? >> well, in any number of areas what governor romney has done as he said last night he laid out the broad principles but what he has done after laying out the broad principles he has gotten specific about the good parts, the carrot, if you will and very vague about the stick.
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so he said i am going to cut rates, i am going to expand spending here, i am not going to add to the deficit, and i am going to take care of all of that and take away tax deductions but i won't tell you which one and cut spending and won't tell you which ones and what we saw last night we continually saw the president trying to pin him down on that and make that point but that's the sort of hard point to make because at the end of the day romney can say no, i am not actually for that spending cut, i am just for spending cuts generally, and for voters trying to make up their mind there is something unstaffing about it because you don't though what he is actually for, but as a political tactic, it clearly has some significant advantages. >> rose: so governor romney has to drill down on those same points he made. >> it is an open question whether he has to trill down, i am n se how much detail voters really demand. you look at -- you just look at the numbers yourselves, if you write about these things or you look at the various independent estimates, the fact is his
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numbers don't quite add up, they just don't, and so there is a real question of what he will then do if he is elected. i am not sure, however, that he actually has to lay that out before the election. i think there is a chance how politics work and the way swing voters work, they are not reading ce reports. it is t earoe he actually has to lay this out -- >> rose: what do you think swing voters are looking for? >> well, that sat good question. i mean, i agree with what mark said. i think first of all swing voters want to sigh some sense of energy and optimism and particularly from a challenger competence and i think romney who i always thought romney would clear that bar. i always thought romney is someone americans could imagine sitting behind the desk in an oval office, and in the last few weeks, there is actually some reason to doubt that, the 47 percent tape, his stiffness and i think last night you saw as mark said people who followed him and have seen this before, last night you saw the romney i
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think americans would say you know i can imagine that guy sitting behind the oval office desk and really important to see what polls look like not just today but really four or five days from now, we know the history of debates, is that for all of the attention we give them, they rarely, rarely dictate an election, i mean the only one you can really argue that did was george w. bush and al fore in 2000, even gerald ford a story people like to tell, ford fell more behind before the debate that doesn't mean the debates couldn't be a decider in this election, of course they could, but i think we should to into it with fairly low expectations of how much they will move the polls until we see otherwise. >> rose: exactly. point well-taken. on the other hand, one of the things that was beginning to creep in was this was not winnable, i don't think people came out of last night thinking it wasn't winnable, do you? >> i agree. >> i think in a macro sense of three big things he accomplished, he, for a good long while, at least for the
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next debate he eliminated thi concern among republicans this thing isn't winnable. and two is, i think he showed people what he is like. >> rose: right. >> more than he ever had. he didn't do it at the convention well enough, it is hard to do in fizzing, it is hard to do even on this program, because the audience, the prepressure of the debate i think he really did and the other thing he established was that he can stand toe to toe with the president and as david said, he cleared the bar last night, at least, of saying i am good enugh, no one can come back in a race when they are behind unless they improve their game. >> rose: right. >> and up until now, there there was an open question would he ever get better, the rally last week, wow. >> rose: you have been in the line of fire in a courtroom arguing for somebody's life, life and death questions. what is it that governor romney did first? and president obama didn't do in the content -- in
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the context of trying to have people believe in you, accept what you are saying, and feel your passion? >> i think governor romney did something which i think is very critical and we haven't touched upon yes yet. he brought passion to his debate and passion is important when you are looking to imfrom es 40, 50 million people. the president of the united states, who i always thought was one of the most brilliant communicate tors of at least my generation .. left his a game in the locker room and i think this sort of reminded me of the really smart guy who shows up for the big final exam only to, decide i didn't study enough and suddenly i am in the middle of a fight i didn't expect and sort of rbling here and i am not making my point, and the more you do that, the deeper you get, the more difficult it is to extricate yourself and as a trialer i watch people and i watch their body language and i try to understand by looking at them what is going on in their minds, similar to what you said in the first ten minute and i will tell you what i saw from the president as this debate
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went on and on and romney kept making better and better points and the president was not responding. i think the president just wanted it to end and i think there was some sort of awkward smiles at times, at a time when he should not have been smiling when hehould ha been responding and there were times when he had the ammunition, i think in his mind, he just didn't get it out and he didn't say it and he didn't do, i think everyone expected him to do, but when you are the president of the united states, i don't care how busy you are, this is the 50 million viewer audience, and the first time for you to go toe to toe with the person who wants to unseat you, you need to prepare, and i think obama is a very bright guy, and i think some of the things romney said i mean, i could have responded in a way that i think was more effective than the president of the uted states responded and i am not immersed in this stuff 224-7 as he is. i think this did a lot of damage to the president and i think it did do damage and i am not a
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accomplishment co, politico but this is what i consider in the swing vote because when you are in a swing vote you want someone to instill confidence that if i swing to you i am not going to be disappointed, and until last height i saw romney as robotic, in the manner in which he performed, last night he humanized himself dramatically, and in the past, in is that was not a speech, obama is political want in a speech, a peach is different than when you are in an argument and if you are in an argument and don't bring passion to your argument the other side is generally going to win and what you say almost matters as much as how you say it. and the scary thing about politics is, substance aside, you know, a lot of the journalist whose know the substance on these issues are debating with themselves who was more accurate and who was not. when you listen to the person in the street, the voter, the juror who i speak to, they say, i understood romney, i didn't understand obama. i liked romney's style. i didn't like the president laying down. i think it was a big disappointment to people who
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like and feel strongly about president obama. >> rose: back to the earlier point i made but you reinforced it sometimes when you are a quarterback or if you are a boxer you have the best plan and at the first hit, you know, you forget the plan and you go back into something you, you for got where you are. >> preparing for a debate when the people around you are all on your side is not always a good idea, and sometimes you don't need a yes person in the room, that's great, that's great, that's great. i don't think he was properly prepared and i think this suggestion that the strategy was to stay above the fray and act president cull, wrong that works on a live stage, i think that may work in the oval office not when you in front of 50 million americans. >> rose: that did you think of this aspect of it? >> i think you can understand where they were coming from, where the obama team was coming from here. they have a lead, and he is the president, the right? and when you combine those two things, you can understand why they wanted to go for conservativism. we saw the same thing at the
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convention. s speech at the conventn was nota veryood speech. it was for him, it was one of, i thought, the worst speeches, big speeches he has given. and yet it really did him no damage. the conventions were great on that for obama. and so you could see coming into this, in which they say, look, we are ahead, you are the president, we don't want you out there waving around the 47 percent number. be presidential. but that doesn't really work in debates for all of the reasons we are talking about here, you have an opponent, when romney ride to do it in the republican debate it didn't really work when he had a lead at one point he tried to stay above the fray and he engaged gingrich in a later debate and it worked better and i think the challenge for them now, for the obama team now is, they clearly can't follow the strategy in the second debate. what they also want to avoid a situation that happened with al fore where, al gore where you are seeing a different human being on the stage in the second debate than you are in the first
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debate. >> rose: go ahead. >> i think there is a certain starkness in the debate that you don't have in the convention. the contrast is extraordinary, in a convention, you are idolized 20,000 people in the room all love you, the energy of the crowd carries you on its shoulders, almost what you say doesn't matter long as long as you don't screw up, on a debate, there is a stark contrast because there is a very bare stage, if you look at there is nobody in front of you booing or cheering and you have a moderator and two people and almost like a gladiator and when you have two gladiators going after each other the crowd expenses when one is afraid. it is called flop sweat, it is n visible t the actor on the understands when the performance is not going well and it just throws off your whole game. >> rose: i actually believe that he understood well on it wasn't going well. >> i think he came out, he seemed a little tentative even before it got anyway. romney hit his stride at the
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beginning and no worming up, among his strongest period was the first five minutes but he was pretty consistent throughout and i think the president didn't call, and adjust at all and just decided to keep doing what he was doing and, you know, it is a rare event in our politics these days when something like the cbs poll and the cmn instant polls and the yen consensus is not divided along partisan lines. overwhelmingly people saw the president lost that not because they thought governor romney's tax plan adds up, not because they want to turn medicare into a voucher, it was purely, as far as i am concerned, style and confidence. > >> rose: when the governor says, you know, the rich will pay the same share they have been paying or more, he is right abou th? >> well, that is very hard to answer. because he said that, he said that will be a defining principle of his tax plan but he also laid out a number of
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defining principles and he cannot rit matically, a rit matically define all of those principles. he can choose not to compromise on that and say under absolutely no circumstances will the shared tacks pay by the rich go down but he can't then also have the scale of ghuts rates that he wants, and so i think we just don't know whether that is the case. what we know is he has been very specific about a cut in rates that would benefit the top a lot and he then said i will find ways to offset that. but the people at the top literally do not get enough tax deductions, so that you can request offset it entirely with their tax deductions so we either have to increase taxes on the middle class or he would have to have his tax plan add to the deficit and he hasn't been willing to say where he compromised. >> rose: that's where the rubber meets the ground for him. >> though those are all totally legitimate critiques of governor romney's plan, but i think the
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governor romney is being held to kind of a double standard on these things. i mean, candidate obama opposed an individual mandate on healthcare and got into office and saw the realty reality of where the votes were and decided he was for an individual mandate. >> candidate obama won't tell us what he wants to do on social security and what his ideas are for a grand bargain with the republicans, so i think governor romney on this point, yes, if you take strictly what he said and what he hasn't said it is not cle how itdds up but don't think there any mystery that if he not elected his tax plan would be, would resellable this but there is a way to swear some of the inconsistencies and fill in some of the holes and maybe there wouldn't be as much deficit reduction or maybe not quite -- wouldn't hold harmless people at slightly lower incomes but we don't think this is a huge discrepancy between romney's lack of express ity and the presidents. >> i would say every candidate is inclear about some things and even some inconsistencies, obama did in '08 and he did this time.
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>> but when you look at what romney has laid out compared to other challengers it is less detailed than what other challengers have laid out and i think that is a legitimate critique for people to make. to repeat i don't think it will drive the election and what most people are looking at but it is fair he has been less detailed than other challengers have been recently what is. >> rose: what do you think is going to drive the election, david. >> i think for a very large portion of the electorate they made up their mind, right, so are we at 90 percent of the electorate or a little higher? the polls have moved. >> rose:. >> then you are left with what is going to me the rest of it, both start at 45, 46, 47 what is going to most the rest of it and to be perfectly honest i don't think we know the answer to that question. i think the debates will be one of the things that will move it. >> rose: i think an interesting questions coming out of this debate debate is the following question, are people leaning to or prepared to support the president because they decided that mitt romney
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was not an appropriate alternative? decided last might that they like the alternative and to longer are trending or committed to thepresident? >> to paraphrase, everyone we notice that is what happened but until we see polling data and see how people actually experienced the debate in whole or in part and watching news coverage we don't know but the mitt romney who showed up, to all of us, who talk on television and write about this, to all of us, that is a working theory that could easily be true, that that guy is an acceptable alternative and if he can sustain being that guy, a lot of the undecides will go towards him. >> rose: i thought that was original with me. there are two things that i think really, really cse you damage in a debate in a fight, in a trial, in a one-on-one confrontation, one is to underestimate your opponent and every time you underestimate you opponent you are asking for trouble. i think the president clearly
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underestimated mr. -- governor romney last night, clearly underestimated him, and paid the price. and second and this i think is a problem that the president of the united states has more so than governor romney, ironically who is the rich person who is presumed to live in a different stratosphere, last night the president made a cardinal mistake when you are speaking to millions and millions of people. you can't talk over your audience and you can't talk down to your audience yo you have to learn to talk to your audience and with mitt romney last night did competent communicated, he communicated, whether he was substantively correct or not on everything you can debate, you know, those issues and will be debated for the next couple of weeks but on key points mitt romney communicated and what he communicated is very simple, that i know what i am talking about, i can be president and do this job and do it better than the man who had it for the last ur years and instead of coming bak and saying in clear, coherent sort of sound bites, you are on, let me tell you why you are wrong, i have done a good job and tell you why i have done a good job, i think president obama when he had those opportunities, either
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punted and didn't want to, you know, go into the rough and tumable with the governor, which is surprising, because i wouldn't have expected that from him. >> rose: thank you, ben, thank you, david. >> thank you, charlie. >> rose: great to see you. back in a moment, stay with us. the fundamental principles of democracy rely on an accurate and reliable system of vote counting. despite continued advances in voting technology, zero there are security issues still persist, barbara simons is an expert on electronic voting and on the advisor of the election commission and her book is called broken ballots will your votes counties, welcome. >> thank you very much, it is a pleasure. >> you have been involved in computer science most of your adult left. >> i have a ph.d. >> rose: yes. that qualifies you. how did you get invved in this, though, the technology of
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voting? >> well, in 2003, a colleague of mine, david dill, a professor at stanford discovered that silicon centrally, santa clara county was about to buy voting machines to be used there and several of us were just astounded because as computer scientists we know that the computers and the voting machines can have software bugs or even hidden malicious code so we got involved. >> rose: as all computers. >> like all computers, exactly and so we got involved, with trying to stop this purchase, in silicon valley and right in the heart of silicon valley and we didn't succeed. >> rose: you could not change the direction. >> we lost three to two. the election officials wanted to believe the vendors over us because the vendors assured them everything is safe. >> rose: and there was your appointment to the international workshop on international voting president clinton, this book kind of comes out of that. >> that was done before we started on this work, that was actually before the voting
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machines that was the first time i thought about that, yes, when i went into that effort, i hadn't really thought about internet voting like most people. but when we fbd looking at the issues, and particularly the security threats and by the way, the internet was much less dangerous in 2000 than it is today. >> rose: why? >> because there are far more viruses around and much more sophisticated. >> rose: much more hacking. >> look at the smith example that didn't happened in 2000, 2001, it is actually a more dangerous place. >> rose: ducks net is the computer virus into the iranian system zero that were controlling the centrifuges. >> that's right, it was a very effective virus, and they got it right into the heart of the iranian work, that was an amazing thing they did, it was incredibly sophisticated. people bank on lane and they say, well i can bank on line, why can't i vote on line? they don't understand that banking on line is insecure, millions of dollars are lost annually, the
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banks replace it, because it is cheaper to cover the losses rather than build new buildings and hire new tellers but they do't tk about itand very quiet because they want people to continue doing this. >> is this a danger because they are not building sophisticated voting machines or is it because they cannot build a good enough voting machine? >> well i think the issue is how do we use technology in voting? i think that is the crux of the issue. there are good ways to use it and bad ways to use it. >> rose: but let me come to that in a moment. i mean you do believe and you do argue that the machines we have are not nearly as goods th oughto be? >> yes. >> rose: right? >> well, some are a lot worse than others. so the paper less voting machines should all have been gotten rid of and recycled years ago, because there is no way -- >> rose: to be replaced by -- >> to be replaced by paper
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ballots and if you want to use computers and i think there is a place to used them, use them you have scanners which you feed the paper ballot into the scan they are is how we do it in san francisco, the scanner tabulates, it looks at the paper ballot and tan hates the results andremendous end zero at the end it gives you the counts, afterwards you can check on the computer and the scanner because you have the original paper ballots that the voter filled out so the voter knows they accurately reflect the voters' will. >> rose: what is the worst thing that has happened with voter machines? >> that is difficult, we may not know, we may not know. >> rose: okay. but is there any 11 in lawyer being the most famous case of voting machines irregularities? >> well, i would actually push back a little on that, because the machines in florida. >> rose: the problem -- >> of course it was a problem in 2000 bus that was paper, hanging chads, that's right, it was, but the vote in florida was all paper. well at that point they had machines tabulating the
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paper but the computers came in florida in 2002 where they had problems again because the machines took a lot of time to start up and people were disenfranchised. >> rose: and people would be disenfranchised how, why? >> because the polls opened very late, and when you have long delays on election day, they are going ther there are going to be people who don't get to vote. >> rose: because they close at a certain hour? >> well people like to go to work, yeah. i mean one of our concerns is that with these touch screens, voting machines, direct electronic recording machines, even the ones that have paper associated with them, they can and will break down, they are getting old and not well made to begin with, and when they break down, people are going to have to wait longer to vote. >> rose: let me go through the problems, okay, first of all, they break down. >> yes. >> and you have to indicate longer and therefore you may finally give up and not vote, that's a problem. >> yes. >> what else? >> oh, they might give the wrong result. >> rose: how would they do that? >> if there is a bug in the
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software we know that has happened, for example -- >> rose: is it a rare occurrence or a frequent occurrence? >> >> it is frequent huff to cause concern, remember, if you don't check you can't be sure whether or not it has happened, and we don't check if there is nothing to check, if it is paper less and we often don't check even 35 is paper because we don't have the laws that require us to check. >> rose: so you have to have paper as a starting point. >> you have to have paper and the right laws you have to do post election ballot audits otherwise you won't know that the results that it is computer reports are actually correct. >> rose: so your commission is to change. >> yes. >> >> rose: and what are the chances you will be able to do this? >> well, one of the reasons -- the main reason we wrote the book is to get the message out, we want people to know and americans to know a great democracy deserves a great voting system and right now, we have a third rate voting system which is just not worthy of our
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democracy, we are also very concerned thatf there is a very close election or multiple close races in upcoming election and it seems likely will will be that if people don't trust the outcome, that is really bad for our democracy. it is unhealthy and creates. >> rose: it erode trust and confidence. >> it erodes trust it means whoever is the winner or declared winner will not have the support of a large pearjt of the population, that's a terrible situation. >> rose: who has the best voting system if not the best democracy but the best voting system in the world? >> oh, gee. i absolutely haven't thought about that question because i have been focusing one on us. >> rose: what is the most efficient way and they are doing it. >> i observed an election in canada. >> rose: they don't have the risks that you say are so apparent in our system. >> i observed an election in canada with paper ballots and it
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worked wonderfully, with paper ballots only two issues and they were incredible simple to fill out, x by the candidates, afterwards they were do you by hand d in an hour and they have very good accounting and made sure the ballots were all counted, every ballot that was given out was accounted for, that the same number of people who signed in were the number voted is a good. >> this is a bit ironic you are a ph.d. in computer science. >> yes. >> and you are now railing against computer science. >> no, no, no, i am not. >> you are, you are saying, look, we can't trust computer science. >> no, no, no, i trust computer science and i trust computers,. >> rose: no you don't, you don't trust them if you say we have to have paper, you don't. >> well, paper with computers. >> rose: ght okay but y he to have the paper, you don't trust the computers alone. >> that's right, that's right. >> but i trust the technology if used properly and there is a place for technology in the voting and the problem is we brought the technology into our voting system before we understood what needed to be done an how to do it right,
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that's main issue and we need to change that, we need to do it properly, we can facilitate and actually go a better job using technology than we did before, because there are better ways of checking but we need to do it properly, we are not going it properly. >> what is the process of change? herds, how would you go abou developing a public understanding of this so that there will be a growing demand that we ensure that we have the best voting system, period? >> well, i hope that this doesn't happen because there are major meltdowns in the upcoming election but i fear that could. >> major meltdowns? >> major meltdowns. >> rose: give me an example of that. >> well, virginia is a very, very, battle ground state. >> rose: right. a swing state. >> a swing state. my fear is that is going to be the florida of 2012. >> rose: fear? >>fear. ro: and how would that? because they have hanging chads or what? >> no, because they have a lot of paper less voting machines, a lot. and some of the machines they
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use are so bad, for example, one of the kind of machines that is in use in virginia was decertified in pennsylvania, pennsylvania got rid of tell, only virginia uses them, there is another -- >> rose: do the virginiaians know this? >> i don't think so .. >> so like the state election board in virginia doesn't know these machines have been disallowed -- >> oh i think they must know but i am talking about the geral public. >> rose: is there a big cost to put electronic voting machines? >> well these machines cost a lot of money to maintain, even the really bad ones you have to store them securely because because you have to worry about someone going in and messing with the software and they need to be maintained. they have been losing physical parts because they are old. >> we couldn't put in in a cloud and make sure it is protected? (laughter.) >> no. >> rose: still litigatest question you have heard. >> i'm sorry. it is just internet voting, i mean when there is something like a suze virus. >> rose: what is that.
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>> that is my favorite virus, it is so damned smart, it is so smart. >> rose: yes. >> that it steals money from your bank account, hopefully not your and mine, but steals money from people's bank accounts and when they go to look at their on line -- this is on line when they look at their on line bank account it looks right. >> rose: yes. >> it makes it look the way it should even though the money is already gone, and you find out, you know, when your check bounces or something and the money by then is off in timbuktu or you don't know where and you don't get it, the banks don't get it back. >> rose: the cayman island and in a case like that, this is a legal question, the banks are liable. >> the banks cover it, yeah. >> rose: because they don't want everybody t to know their system isn't perfect? >> yeah they want people keeping on using the internet. >> rose: and electronic system. >> because it saves them money but you can't do that with votes. ive votes get lost, you can't replace them. i mean you could, but, you know,
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you don't want to do that. >> rose: the ruts might be different. >> that's right. that's right. >> rose: so where do you think we are at this moment? >> well, we are where we should not be, this problem has been known about for quite a while, the computer scientists have been railing about it, you say i don't like computer science. >> rose: no i didn't say you didn't like computer science, well i did say that actually but you don't want to use exurt science in this case alone. >> i do. >> rose: alone. >> i want to use computer science properly. >> okay. >> an it is the computer scientists who have led the fight against these machines because we know, we know how insecure computerized voting machines can be. and byhe way i mean i don't know if we have time to talk about and have to worry about voter registration databases that are also computer based. >> rose: the same idea, though, somebody can tamper with them because it is -- >> if they are not properly. >> rose: tamper with the software we have a problem. >> if they are not properly secured, that's right. >> rose: but the idea they could lose it somehow. >> yes, there is the whole
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accuracy issue, absolutely and the liability, debolt is my favorite example, i mean, the voting machine company no longer exist gus machines are still being used, all of maryland and georgia are going to continue to voting in 2012 on paper less debold voting machines, these machines have been studied and stud did in the book we talk about multiple studies of these machines, every single one found problems and in california, when the secretaries state response sportsdesk study done by independent computer security experts, of all the machines, most of the machines that have been used in california, the red team which is the good guys, who try to break in, they broke into all of them, all of them. the oftware team found robs with all of them. so it is not just debold but the other companies too, but the probably is, with debold who have known about these things for a long time, even with all that is known about debold they are still being voted on. >> rose: might there be some
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better solution around the corner? >> beyond paper? i mean you are really hanging your argument on paper. >> right. as a scientist, i cannot say that there is not a better solution. i mean obviously there could be a better solution. but somebody to keep in mind is, whatever solution we have, it has to be possible to be able to verify the results. we have to convince the losers, to believe they lost, and the loser's supporters will question the result we need to have a system that is so good and so robust and we have to have laws that mandate the appropriate steps so that we can show it to everybody, candidate a got the most votes, no question, look, here, you can check this out. we can prove it. and there are ways of doing that. there are ways of doing that. but we need the right technology and the right laws.
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>> rose: the book is called broken ballots, will your vote count? written by douglas jones and barbara simons, thank you. >> thank you. >> rose: pleasure to have you here. >> it was really nice. >> rose: thank you for joining us. see you next time.
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>> rose: funding for charlie ro has been prided b the coca-cola company, supporting this program since 2002. and american express. additional funding provided by these funders. and by bloomberg, a provider of multimedia news and information services worldwide. be more,
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